


nobody's lullaby

by perihelion (mattratat)



Series: almost (sweet forgiveness) // an ienzo collection [3]
Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: Character Study, Gen, PTSD, and also still issues, the i in ienzo stands for insomnia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-24
Updated: 2019-07-24
Packaged: 2020-07-19 06:08:48
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,592
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19969288
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mattratat/pseuds/perihelion
Summary: Sometimes, it's the small things.Or, Ienzo and the pillow fort.





	nobody's lullaby

**Author's Note:**

  * For [amberwing](https://archiveofourown.org/users/amberwing/gifts).



> for my amazing [friend](https://twitter.com/raptorwhistle), enjoy!

It was surprising, above all else, to realize that he needed to sleep again. 

And it wasn’t so much of a realization as it was being confused by the grogginess in his steps, the slow blinks of his eyes, and the slight slur of his speech after thirty-six hours of consciousness after recompletion. Everything was fuzzy, and, in flashes, he felt just as irritable as he had been as Zexion, and then- 

Then it was the sudden feeling of the ground under his cheek and the worried footsteps drawing near him when he finally closed his eyes and thought, _Oh, right._

* * *

When he wakes, he doesn’t know where he is. He comes to slowly, eyes opening for mere moments before closing for again for minutes at a time, as memories of the day before, of waking up as Ienzo, of seeing the labs again, of reuniting with Aeleus and Dilan again float in and out of his mind. Slowly, he comes to, curled into a ball, clutching at a pillow, soft light streaming through the curtains over the window above his bed. 

And for the second time, he wakes up as Ienzo. 

In a panic, he realized he didn’t know where he was, thrashing in the blanket around him, tangling it in his limbs and wrapping it too tight around himself until- 

Until his eyes find the ceiling, little plastic stars stuck all over the chipping white paint, and it hits him like a tidal wave.

He remembers passing out and of course, _of course,_ they put him in his room. 

His _old_ room, he should say. He feels as much claim to the place now as he does any bit of the rest of the castle. 

Which is to say, none. 

And he doesn’t want to be here. 

Or is it that he _can’t_ be here? He knows that he can’t. He just- he can’t. He can’t, he can’t, he can’t h _e can’t he can’t-_

The room itself isn’t anything special (the apprentices, after all, though they tried their best, weren’t interior designers by any accord, even by a child’s standards), but it seemed suffocatingly small to Ienzo now. The blankets wrapped around him became chains; the pillow under his head was as hard as the wall he’d been pinned against by his neck, and he couldn’t _breathe. The room itself was closing in on him, the wall cold behind him and the razors cutting into his neck and he couldn’t breathe and everything was blurry and he can’t feel emotions but something a lot like terror is bubbling in his throat and he-_

And he scratched at his own wrist, the pain grounding him more than anything else could have. He knew- he knew he was being irrational, deep down, logic trying to force its way into his mind, but he couldn’t _breathe_ and panic filled him from head to toe. 

He scrambled to his feet, standing up so fast his vision went fuzzy as he stared around him. 

This was too much, too soon, and he _knew_ it. 

He couldn’t be in here and so, like any logical (newly reborn) human being, he bolted for the door. 

* * *

The solution, of course, was to not sleep at all. 

This was a bad solution. 

His next solution was to not sleep in his room. 

This didn’t solve everything (after all, he was, frankly, annoyed that he had to sleep at all) but after far too much deliberation, it was the best he could come up with. It did, however, pose another set of problems, not limited to but including where, exactly, he was supposed to sleep. 

It was easy to ignore it during the day, when he was reacquainting himself with the other apprentices and working on restoring the lab to a usable facility once again. Soon, they all knew, their help would be called on. They would be ready when it was. 

But Ienzo, try as he must, simply couldn’t work through the entire night. Mostly because they would physically drag him out if they had to, after his fainting stint. He still caught Aeleus watching him when he thought Ienzo wasn’t looking, worried as ever. Dilan didn’t seem as worried, but Ienzo could feel his eyes on his back sometimes, too. 

It was aggravating, but he supposed he should be grateful they cared. 

As Ienzo bid them all goodnight and made for his room, he formulated a plan in his mind, knowing he couldn’t quite face his old room just yet. 

After all, it would be sensible to sleep in the main lab. He could get a few hours of sleep and get right back to work as soon as he woke. It made sense. 

He just needed to find a corner to stash his blankets in and the problem would be solved. 

After, of course, he retrieved them from his room. 

The familiar hallway seemed smaller now, but he knew it hadn’t changed. 

He had. And that was the biggest problem of all, wasn’t it? 

When he reached his old room, he only looked up from the floor to grab the blankets and two dusty pillows before sprinting back out again. 

It was easy to settle into it on the first night, surrounded by pillows and blankets to help him forget he was trying to sleep on a cold and cracked floor. 

His sleep was restless, but he wasn’t surprised by any means. 

It took three days for him to finally come to terms with the fact that this was not, sadly, working. It took three mornings of being woken up from his short lived nightmares by the footsteps of different friends in the early hours of the morning. 

_Could they still call each other that? Friends?_ He wondered, one morning just a few days after recompletion, pouring scalding coffee on his hand, too tired and lost in his thoughts to notice he wasn’t aiming for the cup before it was burning his hand. He’d half shouted in surprise as the boiling liquid splashed against his skin, the pain a stronger sensation than he ever remembered it being. It had surprised him, but Aeleus had been there with a potion, which shouldn’t have surprised him more, but it did. 

Aeleus had rolled his eyes at Ienzo’s gut reaction of indignancy at being helped and practically poured the potion down his throat for him before wrapping Ienzo’s hand in bandages, just to be safe. 

Ienzo decided that they were friends all still friends, after all. Someday, they might even be a family again. 

Now, though, he was dragging himself up and out of his odd nest of blankets and pillows, every joint in his body cracking, one after another. 

Well, dragging himself was a bit of a stretch, because, for the first time since recompletion, he really just wanted to go back into his pile and sleep for just a few more minutes. 

He knew the dark circles under his eyes were bad, but if he didn’t look at his reflection, he could ignore them. 

He knew that he shouldn’t be putting his newly reformed heart through this much constant stress, between the constant work and lack of sleep, but he could ignore the way it skipped by focusing on his work. 

He knew, but he refused to see. 

_Maybe,_ he groggily thought, if he fell asleep for just a few minutes, the nightmares wouldn’t find him. 

It was a silly hope, but his heart yearned for it anyways. 

The thing was, at some point, the strange, makeshift bedding he’d built in the far corner of the lab had somehow gotten _comfortable_. But only when he was trying to wake up, because life was just never that easy for Ienzo. 

He groaned, and finally opened his eyes, and nearly had a heart attack.

“Ienzo,” Dilan said, staring down at him, arms crossed and frown all too familiar, “What is this?”

Ienzo had the feeling he already knew the answer, but he felt himself shrink into the pile of pillows. “It seemed like the most productive way to start working as quickly as possible every morning.”

Dilan was, clearly, not convinced. “Your room is right down the hall.”

Ienzo wasn’t awake enough to try and argue with that. Instead, he simply shrugged and said, “So it is.”

Dilan sighed, holding out a hand. Ienzo took it and a moment later he was upright as Dilan hauled him onto his feet. 

Ienzo tried not to feel too sheepish, but he supposed it was foolish to think they wouldn’t have noticed he was sleeping in the lab this entire time. 

“There’s an old guest room that made it,” Dilan said. It sounded like an offhand comment, but he was staring past Ienzo and practically glaring at the pile of pillows and blankets behind him. “You could sleep there. Down the hall and to the left.”

He turned away before Ienzo could even think to acknowledge his words or thank him for the suggestion (even though it probably wasn’t a suggestion so much as a demand). 

That was that, then. 

* * *

In the end, he took the guest room. It didn’t take long to move his pillows and blankets into it. It was the same hallway as his old room, but that was okay. He knew he would have to face it someday. 

His hand was on the doorknob now, shaking as he debated whether or not it was worth opening. 

_Soon,_ he thought as he turned away from the door. _Some day._

**Author's Note:**

> thanks so much for reading everyone!!! it's crying about ienzo hours a g a i n !!!! (and no one is shocked) 
> 
> hmu on[twitter](https://twitter.com/vanitashours) for more feral ienzo screaming and the likes!! 
> 
> as always, pls kudos and comment if u enjoyed!!! i love reading what everyone has to say about the fic and my best boy- 
> 
> have a great day!!!


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